The president of the Faculty Senate is considering resigning because of his disgust with the presidential search process.
Bill Gutzke, who is also on the presidential search committee, outlined several options he is exploring in an e-mail sent to faculty members, staff and the Student Government Association one day after the presidential search committee selected eight candidates for interviews scheduled Nov. 28.
One of his options includes resigning from the Faculty Senate.
"I will give my final decision next week or after Thanksgiving," Gutzke said.
In the e-mail, Gutzke said he objected when the committee passed a motion to allow the addition of one external candidate in the interview process, but eliminate two internal candidates -- Interim President Ralph Faudree and Dean of the College of Communication and Fine Arts, Richard Ranta. Gutzke said several motions and votes were made that allowed a candidate with fewer of the committee's votes, Oliver McGee, to be added to the list, but the committee would not consider allowing the internal candidates -- both of whom had received more votes than McGee -- to remain in the pool of candidates.
"I do not want to play this game when the ethics of the committee are different than mine," Gutzke said. "I was the one who had to call Dr. Faudree last night. It was the hardest thing I have had to do at this University."
Gutzke said in the e-mail his main reason for being angry was that the committee did not review academic credentials of candidates -- credentials which may have included fundraising experience and ties to the community.
"The procedures followed at Wednesday night's meeting were flawed. The problem was how the rules were changed as the meeting was conducted," Gutzke said.
Gutzke said he had only four options -- to accept the decision and continue to try and address other faculty issues from his present position in the senate, to continue as president of the Faculty Senate and ask faculty and staff members to voice their concerns about the issue, to step down as Faculty Senate president or to resign from The University.
During Thursday's meeting, Faculty Senate executive board member Ken Lambert encouraged Gutzke not to resign. Lambert said the initial vote was not the end of the issue.
"Don't give up just yet," Lambert said. "We may get what we want in the end. Don't let the faculty not have a leader. It is not right, but we have to move on. The decision has been made to eliminate candidates and keep ones based on political reasons, like Affirmative Action."
Gutzke said in the e-mail that according to the search committee's standards, contributions and loyalty were irrelevant at The University.
"A person who has come up through the ranks can't compete for the top level administrative positions with total strangers who are from the outside," Gutzke said in the e-mail. "One committee member even said that he thought it was best if no internal candidate was on the list because of personal feelings people might have about them."
The meeting Gutzke referred to in his e-mail was one of several conducted by the committee in the last two months due to an e-mail sent from a faculty member who expressed a need for a more diverse list of candidates.
The University president's position was vacated by V. Lane Rawlins in May. Rawlins left The University of Memphis to take a job as president of The University of Washington.
